Glimpses of Three Coasts

by Helen Hunt Jackson

It is worth while to take a turn down some of the crevice-like alleys in these Rows, and see where the people live; see also where the nobility gets part of its wherewithal to eat, drink, and be clothed.

Often there is to be seen at the far end of these crevices a point of sunlight; like the gleaming point of light seen ahead, in going through a rayless tunnel. This betokens a tiny court-yard in the rear. These court-yards are always well worth seeing. They are paved, sometimes with tiles evidently hundreds of years old. The different properties of the dozens of families living in tenements opening on the court are arranged around its sides, apparently each family keeping scrupulously to its own little hand's-breadth of room; frequently a tiny flower-bed, or a single plant in a pot, gives a gleam of cheer to the place. In such a court-yard as this, I found, one morning, a yellow-haired, blue-eyed little maid, scrubbing away for dear life, with a broom and soap-suds, on the old tiles. She was not over nine years old; her bare legs and feet were pink and chubby, and she had a smile like a sunbeam.

"I saw the sun shining in here so brightly that I walked up the alley to see how it got in," I said to her.

"Yes, mem," she said, with a courtesy. "It do shine in here beautiful." And she looked up at the sky, smiling.

"Have you lived here long?" I asked.

"About nine months, mem. I'm only in service, mem," she continued with a deprecating courtesy, modestly anxious to disclaim the honor of having any proprietary right in the place.

"We've five rooms, mem," she went on. "It's a very nice lodging, if you'd like to see it." And she threw open a door into an infinitesimal parlor, out of which opened a still smaller dining-room, lighted only by a window in the parlor door. There were two bedrooms above, reached by a nearly upright stairway, not over two feet wide. The fifth room was a "beautiful washroom," which the little maiden exhibited with even more pride than she had shown the parlor. "It's three families has it together, mem," she explained. "It's a great thing to get a washroom. And we've a coal-hole, too, mem," she said eagerly; "you passed it, coming up." And she stepped a few paces down the alley, and threw open a door into a rayless place possibly five by seven feet in size. "It used to be a bedroom, mem, to the opposite house; but it's empty now, so we gets it for coal." I could not take my eyes from the child's face, as she prattled and pattered along. She looked like an angel. Her face shone with loyalty, pride, and happiness. I envied the poverty-stricken dwellers in this court their barefooted handmaiden, and would have taken her then and there, if I could, into my own service for her lifetime. As we stood talking, another door opened, and a grizzled old head popped out.

"Good-morning, mem," said the child cheerily, making the same respectful courtesy she had made to me. "I'm just showin' the lady what nice lodgin's we've 'ere in the court."

"Humph," said the old woman gruffly, as she tottered out, leaving her door wide open; "they're nothin' to boast of."

Her own lodging certainly was not. It was literally little more than a chamber in the wall: it had no window, except one small square pane above the door. You could hardly stand upright in it, and not much more than turn around. The walls were hung full: household utensils, clothes, even her two or three books, were hung up by strings; there being only room for one tiny table, besides the stove. In one corner stood a step-ladder, which led up through a hole in the ceiling to the cranny overhead in which she slept. This was all the old woman had. She lived here alone, and she paid to the Duke of Westminster two shillings and sixpence a week for the rent of the place. "It's dear at the rent," she said; "but it's a respectable place, an' I think a deal o' that." And she sighed.